The Pupil Campaign

Pupil CampaignA Year 5 class in Marvels Lane Primary set out to develop a ‘campaign’ about the accommodation at their school with presentations of their findings to parents and Lewisham council.

Overview

The pupil campaign aimed to answer the question: ‘Are classrooms in Marvels Lane Primary School too small to fulfil pupils’ needs?’ Alongside this ran an additional local project aimed at finding out how children travelled to school, the reasons for the chosen mode of travel and how it affects the environment. Both projects involved cross-curricular links with PSHCE, Numeracy, and the local e-democracy campaign. As the project developed the pupils were given the opportunity to perform a presentation to their local councillor, join in a question and answer session with the Mayor of Lewisham and to debate in the council chambers.

What did the project aim to achieve?

The project aimed to:

Developing the campaign

The Year 5 pupils decided to design a survey to find out from other children in the school what their views were regarding the accommodation. Children were asked what affected them in their classroom due to its size i.e. in terms of concentration, noise, behaviour, temperature, safety and so on. Once the information was returned they graphed the results which compared a large classroom to a smaller classroom. They discussed how the graphs compared and how they related in each component i.e. is noise perceived to be more of a problem in smaller classrooms than in larger classrooms.

They took photographs of classrooms, studied them carefully and made annotations of issues that concerned them i.e. too little space to walk between desks, not enough space to fit in all the furniture etc.

Pupil Campaign

The pupils decided that they would ideally like an extension to their existing classroom provision. They discussed the advantages and disadvantages of an extension and the possible environmental impact within the school. The pupils then researched classrooms of the future on the internet and drew up a wish list for their own classroom. The class prioritised 10 items.

The pupils then worked to summarise their findings in order to put together a presentation. They worked together to collate their findings and interpret the figures. They decided on the headings for the presentation and then included the most important content, making sure they included references to access for the disabled. Pupils took part in a hotseat activity where they had to pretend that they were being interviewed by the local newspaper and had to respond to questions about their plans for the school accommodation.

The class invited a local councillor to the school along with parents and presented their findings.

Presentation to local councillor

Presentation to local councillor.

The councillor facilitated a visit to the Town Hall and a visit by the Mayor has been organised. During the project the class were also involved in a live videoconference with the Mayor of Lewisham (see related report - Pupil Questionnaire).

Presentation to local councillor

The live webcast with Mayor Steve Bullock

What worked well

What went less well

Benefits gained from the project

The children gained an insight into local government with the understanding that they can make a difference and bring about change. The children realized the council’s role and that the Mayor cares about local people but that other people are also involved in important decision-making. Children were able to cover a lot of the Geography curriculum: enquiry skills, reasons for change and geographical patterns in the environment - such as how travel is relative to the distance from school and hotspots in the classroom, where there is least room children get squashed more. Map-work was an essential component of the project that enabled children to become more confident with using maps. Mathematical coverage was good, looking at measuring, data - handling and analysis of surveys. A variety of issues were covered over the project – pollution, disability, health and safety.

Unexpected outcomes

Did technology improve the project?

Parental involvement

Overall evaluation

Projected Outputs

Outputs at the end

All the above plus:

Additional Comments

The project enabled the school to cover these KS2 Geography objectives in the National Curriculum: 1a,b,c,d,e, 2a,b,c,d,e,f,g, 5a,b

“We really could leave a legacy for all the children who will learn at Marvels Lane Primary School.”

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local e-Democracy National Project

The Sage eDemocracy Project is part of The local e-Democracy National Project